Three Dark Tales
by Alpacca Joe
Summary: Three short stories of a smiliar nature.
1. Fade

**Fade**

Daria clutched her upper left arm tightly, lips pulled back from her teeth in a grimace, face tight with suppressed pain. Her eyes roved over the stains embedded in the fiber of the fabric on which she sat. It stank of beer, pot and body odor, a strangely comforting combination. Half sprawled on the aged couch in the Lane basement, thick, sticky streams of blood running over her fingers to soak the sleeve of her grubby green jacket, Daria couldn't help it as a wry chuckle bubbled into the still air.

In all of Lawndale who else but she, Daria Morgendorffer, could manage to get shot for reading in a coffee shop? After all, she had not been giving a speech, leading a protest or doing anything so controversial. She had merely been reading a story.

The pounding of footfalls distracted her for a moment, then someone stood over her, speaking in a low, reassuring, if slightly panicked, voice.

"Okay, amiga. We're gonna get that bitch outta you, then everything's gonna be fine."

Movement, a slight disturbance somewhere around her right foot, then a large, strong hand peeling her fingers away from the wound in her shoulder. Something was tied tightly around her arm. It looked like a shoelace. Dazed, Daria looked up to see Trent standing over her, slightly behind Jane. His face was placid as ever, but his hands were clenched into tight fists. Daria wondered idly if he hated her, took in the bruise which smudged the skin beneath Jane's right eye and decided she didn't blame him if he did. Jane raised something in her left hand. Daria blinked when it caught the light and threw it into her eyes. The Exact-o-knife cut easily through sodden fabric and suddenly, Daria's jacket was minus one sleeve. Trent climbed onto the couch behind her, and she relaxed slightly when his strong, wiry arms circled her body and locked just below her sternum. A dull heat was shooting through her body in waves, sweat pouring from her brow and down her sides despite the glacial shudders wracking her body. When had it gotten so cold?

"Daria, look at me. Come on, I need to know you can hear me. Good. You're gonna be okay, amiga, I promise. You're gonna be okay! It's gonna hurt for a little while, but I promise you, when it's over, you'll feel a hellova lot better."

A thick cloth was placed between Daria's teeth. She had just time enough to muse on the afternoon's turn of events; the drunk jock, the panicked riot after the gun shot, the sickening crack as Timothy O'Neill's head struck the corner of the stage in a dead faint, all the culmination of Kevin's failed magic trick. Then the world was lost in a flood of white hot pain, kicking legs, jerking limbs and the feel of Trent's arms straining to keep her small body in place as Jane's knife dug through her flesh in search of a lead slug.

From far away, Daria heard someone screaming, a seemingly endless keening of pure, undiluted agony. What seemed like hours later there was a small, almost delicate metallic click and the screaming slowly tapered off. Somewhere through the fog came indistinct voices calling her name and a large, warm hand stroking her cheek as the world began to fade...

1/16/09


	2. This Is Not Hell

**This Is Not Hell**

Daria pushes Jane's door the rest of the way in and is greeted with an unwelcome sight: Jane and Tom stand locked in a passionate embrace and as Daria stares, disgust floods her system. Jane's eyes, cold as chips of blue ice, open wide, then narrow at the intrusion. The toneless make out music is shut off and the two supposed friends engage in obligatory banter.

It is more like verbal sparring than a friendly joust and all the while, Daria's mind is on the true intruder in the girls' midst. Tom stands off to one side, Jane's side, smiling his smug smile and acting for all the world as though he belongs. Jane breaks into this would-be internal diatribe and before Daria knows what has happened, they arrive at the drug store.

Passive-aggressive accusations mingle with quiet desperation and playful threats as Daria tries, in vain, to extricate herself from this ill-fated endeavor. In spite of her effort, the bespectacled brunette finds herself in the Lane kitchen, brush in hand as Jane initiates her reenacment of the Spanish Inquisition. Daria does her best to defend herself, but even nearly an hour's recess is not enough to douse the fires and the Witch Hunt continues.

Jane's voice is raised as hysteria threatens and the bald truth emerges. Daria finds herself turned out under accusation of the attempted theft of a man she has never wanted. And never will. Dispirited, she trudges home on heavy feet and drags herself up to the sanctuary of her bedroom.

This is not hell, she tells herself as she sits on her bed, legs drawn up with her back pressed against the padded wall. The afternoon light begins to fade. First her father's Lexus pulls into the driveway, then her mother's SUV. It is nearly dark when Quinn knocks on the door calling Daria's name. Bile rises in her throat at the thought of food, and the dinner summons goes unanswered. After a moment Quinn withdraws and Daria's chin returns to her knees.

This is not hell, she assures herself again as Jane's shrill shout rings through her mind. A vision of Jane's angular, feline face, a face Daria has grown to love, twisted in mad jealousy.

A lonely crow caws in the gathering dark as slowly Daria's eyes drift closed.

This is not hell.

Feb. 09- April 1/09


	3. Dark Siren

**Dark Siren**

Daria Morgendorffer watched her younger sister check her face in the Lexus's side view mirror for the fifth time and almost smiled. She sat in the center of the back seat, occasionally lending a sarcastic comment to Jake's cheerful prattle. Bottomless eyes drank in the scenery as it rolled by on either side, the razor-edged mind behind them ever calculating, never still. Daria's face, pale and almost without expression, was delicately pretty behind her large glasses. The shape was a pleasing oval framed by thick auburn hair, lips pink and full. The only thing off was her eyes. They were like deep holes bored into the earth, black and chilling. All light seemed to be drawn into their depths to drown in the endless cold.

A tiny smile was reflected in the window as the Lexus rolled to a gentle halt. A new town, a new start. The tedium of Highland was behind her, now. Lawndale lay spread before her like a royal feast, and Daria intended to savor every bite. The smile grew by mere degrees, but somehow it seemed repellant, dangerous. The girl in the window returned the smile, the space where her eyes should have been filled with a roiling darkness.

The slamming of a car door brought Daria out of her reverie and she looked around to see Quinn already surrounded by a gaggle of eager followers. Daria smiled again but this one was pleasant, almost fond. Daria could no more begrudge Quinn her spotlight than the sun its warmth-- the two simply went hand in hand; one could not exist without the other. As Daria watched, the younger Morgendorffer tossed her fiery hair and closed her eyes as she drew in a deep, slow breath. The students crowded around her all seemed to go dewy-eyed simultaneously and swayed in place. A moment later Quinn's eyes opened and the small crowd came back to themselves with small head shakes or blinks. Quinn tossed her mane once more and Daria caught her eye. The elder Morgendorffer's smile widened, but Quinn faltered, her expression uneasy. Daria blinked, the moment broke. With something not unlike relief Quinn walked forward and was welcomed into the crowd, drinking in their adulation and seeming to shine from within with a radiance to rival the sun and all the night stars.

Jake was talking again. With a small sigh Daria grabbed her bag and stepped out of the car. She exited on the driver's side so she could lean in and kiss her father on the forehead before he pulled away. As she watched the Lexus shrink into the distance, Daria again mused on she and her sister's contrary nature. Quinn, the very definition of the word "siren." With her sweetness and beauty, Quinn drew people to her like bees to flowers. She fed on their love and admiration and they flocked to her, threw themselves willingly at her feet much like the fabled sailors of Greek myth.

Then there was Daria. The exact opposite of Quinn, Daria fed on the darker side of human nature. Despair to her was sweetest ambrosia and much as Quinn brought out the light in those around her, Daria dragged forth depression and self loathing; she, the dark siren, drove her prey relentlessly until they threw themselves on the rocks for no purpose other than the blessed relief of oblivion. It saddened her at times, what she did to those around her, but in the end there was nothing for it. She was what she was, and as her mother told her almost daily a siren must sing her song, whatever it may be.

Chin raised firmly, Daria turned and walked into the school.

***

Daria surveyed the classroom which housed the after school Self Esteem class with a raised brow. While she had provoked the self-important, obnoxious shrew of a school psychologist out of principal, Daria could not deny that the debacle had turned out in her favor: an entire class of down trodden teenagers, a veritable buffet of insecurity and self doubt. The room was more or less full, as far as the roster on the teacher's desk showed, so Daria moved to take an empty desk toward the back when her eyes fell upon a girl in the second row. She wore a red jacket and ash grey boots and while her expression was bland, a deep pool of doubt roiled at her center. A rather predatory smile curled Daria's pink lips as she slipped into the desk in front of the girl.

Sure, she had been looking forward to a main course, but who could say no to a little junk food now and then?

The teacher entered with a cheerful smile and the door swung slowly shut as though swept in a phantom breeze.

1/28/09  
2/02/09  
3/18/09


End file.
